I’ve noticed at least five people having a conniption on social media because Autechre’s (brilliant as far as I’m concerned) NTS Sessions 1 - 4 wasn’t in our Albums Of The Year 2018 chart which was published on the site last week. I hope the publication of this chart acts as an astringent huff of smelling salts to bring those poor souls back round to consciousness. There’s no way we would have ignored such a fine release, it’s just that - if you want to be really pedantic about it - it’s not really a studio album as such but something that sits on the live album/ sessions anthology/ compilation axis and as such it’s something a bit different.

We’ve long acknowledged that the album simply doesn’t hold the same position of primacy as it once did (although most of us here are still dyed in the wool fans of that format). If you want to get a clearer picture of what we’re into, here at tQ, then you should pay equal attention to today’s chart and the tracks chart which will be published next week.

For more than one person who works at this website, today’s chart, which draws together reissues, mixes, live albums, splits, compilations, sessions, anthologies, greatest hits and soundtracks, is the key statement of the year and I can guarantee that if you check out everything here you’ll walk away with something that will boggle your ears.

This chart was compiled by me from ballots cast by Patrick Clarke, Christian Eede, Anna Wood, Luke Turner and myself. While it may sound like a case of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ to some, I can only reiterate that we are in a never-more precarious financial position and facing a 2019 in which we will either have to scale back extensively on what we do, find some (miraculous and as yet unidentified) new way of funding the site or close down. If you find any music at all that you enjoy I would ask that you use the button below to donate to our upkeep either as a one off or by monthly donation.

And to all the Autechre fans who have now regained consciousness but are about to resubmit to the conniption: you’re right… it should have been placed higher up the chart but just look at the other 99 pieces of audio gold for you to explore after you’ve finished your daily spin of NTS Sessions 1 - 4.
Thank you for reading the site during 2018 and I hope you and yours have a very happy Christmas and a peaceful new year.

“There’s a lot lot lot on here and it’s all good. “Afro-Centric Jazz, Street Funk and the Roots of Rap in the Black Power Era 1969-75”, it says on the cover, and we get Don Cherry, Baby Huey, The Art Ensemble Of Chicago. We also get poetry, so much poetry, even though the lengthy title doesn’t flag that up. Gil Scott Heron flags it up, in the introduction to his track: “We have a poem here called ‘Whitey On The Moon’,” he says, laconic. “It’s inspired by some whiteys on the moon – I want to give credit where credit is due.” The track is a short funny angry sad piece of him and it barely needs saying that it speaks as loud to us now as it did then. The poetry on Soul Of A Nation 2 is not just the “roots of rap” (though that’s a lot) but a deep down powerful pleasure in language and tone and play and expression, it is “the ritual of the mind and soul” (that line is from Sarah Webster Fabio’s ‘Work It Out’, also on this comp), and it’s a conduit for black power just like the rest of this glorious album.” Anna Wood

"BBC Radio 1 Essential Mixes can tend to be very smooth affairs, with many of the contributing DJs taking the opportunity afforded to them of producing a studio mix to go heavy on the post-production editing. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, but it was refreshing to hear Call Super make no attempts to divert from his usual style when he made his debut in the series. His hands-on approach to the mixer sees him chop and cut through many of the sounds you could expect to hear from him in a club set. Bookended by perhaps one of the finest pieces of dance music of all-time in Carl Craig's take on Maurizio's 'Domina', he moves through minimal-leaning tech-house, percussion tracks, electro, UK garage, a DJ Sprinkles tearjerker and one of the year's most breathtaking club tracks in Donato Dozzy's 'Cleo'. A pleasure to listen to." Christian Eede

"The roots of SunnO))) stems back to when Stephen and I first started playing together in Seattle. The group that we first played in together was called Thorr’s Hammer which was a very primitive slow death metal band. We were really obsessed with Hellhammer and Celtic Frost and we really wanted to have something that sounded like that coz we were just two guys really starting to play music together. It's still all there, we still listen to that music and still have the same feeling as back then. We’re two guys that have a mutual respect for a lot of the same music and enjoy playing music together; nothing's happened drastically that’s changed that." Greg Anderson

"Having spent many years hailed as an essential figure in her base of Chicago and as a resident of the city's smartbar club, Eris Drew's breakthrough year came in 2018 as she became a regular fixture on European club line-ups and beyond. This mix for Resident Advisor, which arrived at the very end of 2017, is a fine example of why she's so respected. She's as adept playing old US and UK rave records that she's been collecting since the '90s as she is playing brand new party-storming breakbeat cuts, and both are represented here in fine form." Christian Eede

“The opening track on this album is enough to blast it straight into your heart. ‘A Little Piece’ claps and tiptoes and tinkles and echoes with such full and instant character that by the end of its two minutes you feel like it’s a new small friend. Delightfully, the album carries on being brilliant. This is a compilation of works by Mercure from 1983-1990; they were originally released on cassettes and circulated via tape-trading networks (imagine getting one in the post, a little plastic package of magic) when Mercure was based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, working on music for film, TV, dance and theatre. Now the glorious Freedom To Spend label have gathered 19 of the tracks together for a second retrospective (Eye Chant came out in 2017) of her experimental, compelling Daphne-Oram-goes-raving-hard-with-Vangelis-and-Yello work.” Anna Wood

"It’s a broad set, there are anthemic pop mega-hits that never were, blasts of bizarre and beguiling electronic experiments, pummelling post-punk labyrinths, bright, jangling scousadelia and everything in between, and among this sprawling, splintered scene there are myriad stories to tell." Patrick Clarke

The Thousand Incarnations Of The Rose: American Primitive Guitar And Banjo

(Craft)

"Arguably the key to pulling together a timeless compilation is having the knack to appeal to the casual listener, the neophyte and the seriously engaged equally and without causing alienation to any or all. Glenn Jones knows his 'American Primitive Guitar', from the deepest cuts from Takoma (Peter Walker's 'April In Cambridge' to the necessary standards (John Fahey's 'The Portland Cement Factory At Monolith California'). This incredible compilation takes its name from the centrepiece track, a 14 minute epic by Robbie Basho." John Doran

13. Autechre -

NTS Sessions

(WARP)

"The sounds in ‘violvoic’ are both frhenzsolthy and bowwnechey - it’s what you’d hear walking through the volcanic landscape on Idunn Mons, if you then put those sounds through an Italian transistor guitar amp. (Other NTS Sessions tracks that sound as though they’re going through the Italian transistor guitar amp: ‘debris_funk’ and ‘I3 ctrl’.) The distant glhripston sounds on ‘turbile epic casual, stpl idle’ are what I imagine an approaching electrical storm on HAT-P-116 sounds like." Jackie Thompson

It has been a decade since the first African Scream Contest, a joyous and rich compilation of psychedelic funk from Benin. was released on Analog Africa. It has since gone down as one of the label’s defining releases, and the second edition is lo less of a delight. Opener ‘A Min We Vo Nou We’ by Les Sympathics de Porto Novo brims with brilliance, a searing and relentless six minute primer. From then on there’s frenzy, joy and smoothness in equal measure on a record that is easily as essential as its predecessor. Patrick Clarke

"In a year that has seen Objekt go from strength to strength as a DJ, his contribution to the Resident Advisor podcast series sees him do away with one of the customary components of techno: the kick drum. Delving into his Rekordbox folder of 'No-kick rollers', he moves through an hour of propulsive dancefloor-aimed tracks from the likes of LOFT (complete with Eastenders samples), Peder Mannerfelt, Jeff Mills, Surgeon and Barker (whose Debiasing explored this theme across an entire EP). 'I've had a lot of fun recently, when faced with an adventurous enough crowd, delving into this folder and trying to keep people dancing for as long as possible without playing any tracks with kick drums,' says Objekt in an interview with Resident Advisor. On RA.650, he does a fine job of proving you don't need drums to build the energy of a dancefloor." Christian Eede

Mission Of Dead Souls captures what, when it was recorded in 1981 at the Kezar Pavillion in San Francisco, was considered to be the ‘last ever’ performance by Throbbing Gristle; shortly afterwards, they issued a statement: ‘This Mission is Terminated’. Though they did reform in 2004, and their actual last gig was six years after that, this re-release – the first time it’s been readily available since the early 90s – feels like it hurtles towards something terminal. There is a grim, evil energy to this record that still burns 31 years on in the band’s final, ferocious assault. Patrick Clarke

"I think the community within the psych / noise / improv / experimental scene is really important and very apparent at the moment. It helps foster a sense of support and a massive sense of encouragement, really. I have friends from all over the planet through being involved." Jason Stoll of God Unknown

8. Chris Carter -

Miscellany

(Mute)

"In the early days of TG we would have these extended weekend jam sessions at our Martello Street studio and I would bring along a stack of cassette tapes containing ideas, rhythms and loops I'd been working on during the week. We'd go through them and see which ones worked for us and any that didn't I'd put to one side. Quite often I bring along the same tapes a couple of weeks later and an idea that hadn't worked out before might quite capture our imagination the second, or third time around and eventually got used, or not." Chris Carter

"Berlin-based SPFDJ first rose to prominence as part of the London-based Universe of Tang collective whose warehouse parties and no-holds-barred techno have seen them emerge as a vital force in London clubbing. Her mix for New York's Discwoman collective does a good job of showcasing why she's become a regular fixture of line-ups for Berlin parties such as Herrensauna this year while also enjoying a busying touring schedule elsewhere. Ripping through a selection of EBM and alternately industrial and hypnotic breakneck techno for just over an hour, the energy levels remain high for much of the mix's duration. 'It's pretty raw and ‘hype’ if you ask me," she says in an interview accompanying the set. If you like what you hear, keep an eye on her newly launched Intrepid Skin label for more of these sounds in 2019." Christian Eede

6. Alice Coltrane -

Spiritual Eternal: The Complete Warner Bros. Studio Recordings

(Real Gone)

"Music was universal for Alice Coltrane, and she expanded and transcended to include it all. Spatially and logically, I suspect, you can't expand and transcend – unless you have worked out how to expand and transcend space and logic, and probably time as well. That's what she does. She rises above and she digs in - the deeper you go, the higher you go. Alice Coltrane is everywhere and nowhere in these recordings; she's ego-less and grandiose at the same time and, rather than cancelling each other out, they work magic together." Anna Wood

"This is such an utterly charming, powerful and frequently moving album that transcends the customary 'will this do?' laziness of the soundtrack release. Through it, and in Shirley Collins' continuing work and wondrous voice, the old songs remain vital and alive." Luke Turner

"Sly & The Family Drone set up in a circle in the middle of the room to unleash their slowly building de-bleaking righteous and joyous noise, and were joined by a bunch of brass players who'd been secreted around the venue for a finale that made our heads fall off. "I've ended up with a dent in my forehead after headbanging so hard I headbutted a speaker stack," says our John Doran. "After helping a near naked Matt Cargill up the very same teetering speaker stack I nearly got more than I bargained for after nearly grabbing on to Matt's 'handle' instead of that belonging to the cabinet... friend of tQ Natalie Sharp ended up with whiplash meaning she has been unable to nod for a week..." Anonymous TQ Staffer

"Grim, fatalistic, and overdetermined, the view of the self that Aster traces in Hereditary is nothing less than the purest of ontological nightmares, one where we are betrayed from the very moment of birth by the genetic makeup of our bodies and the malefic influences we inherit from our ancestors. As the film builds to a climax that is a rapturous and ecstatic embrace of the darkness inside all of us, we watch as Annie and Peter struggle to loose themselves from the constricting bonds of fate, with each step they take away from death and despair seeming to only lead them closer to their own fated destruction." Brian Raven Ehrenpreis

"Salm records the congregation of the Back Free Church, on the Isle of Lewis, singing unaccompanied psalms in Gaelic. Each verse is led by a precentor, who chooses a tune to fit the psalm on the spot, and leads the congregation with a couple of bars. Then everyone else joins in, and a ragged and beautiful sounds swells through the tiny chapel. The style of singing is technically categorised as free heterophony, with the group singing together, but as individuals. Each sings at their own pitch and speed, and in their own style. The result is unfiltered and unpolished, and it packs an astonishing emotional punch." Tom Bolton

"It’s safe to say that Ursula K Le Guin, extraordinary writer, thinker, activist, daughter of an anthropologist and imaginer of other worlds, was aware in her bones and deep in her heart as well as in her massive brilliant brain, of some of the nuances and many of the horrors of colonialism, inequality and ecological destruction... She built a whole world for us, with her book and this album; she and Todd Barton didn’t borrow from anyone. They created it all, and gave it away. Literally, in fact - this album was originally released as a cassette that came attached to the front cover of the book." Anna Wood

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